is the pronunciation of enlish word a problem at this time
TRANSCRIPT
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THE DIFFICULTY OF MANY COUNTRIES
INPRONOUNCING ENGLISH
Submitted by:
Daisy D. Santisas
III-22(S&T)
Submitted to:
Gwen Maria Severro
September 30,2008
SAMAR NATIONAL SCHOOL
S.Y. 2009-2010
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INTRODUCTION
First impressions
Pronunciation is definitely the biggest thing that people notice when
you are speaking English.
When you meet a person, and you just say a sentence or two, do
you think they will notice your poor vocabulary or bad grammar?
Probably not. But they will notice if your pronunciation is good or
bad. If your pronunciation is poor, they will immediately think about
you as "the guy/girl who speaks bad English". Your pronunciation
creates the first impression you make.
Communication
Good pronunciation should be one of the first things that you learn
in English. You can live without advanced vocabulary you can use
simple words to say what you want to say. You can live without
advanced grammar you can use simple grammar structures
instead. But there is no such thing as "simple pronunciation". If you
don't have good pronunciation, you have... bad pronunciation.
And the results of bad pronunciation are tragic. Even if you use
great vocabulary and grammar, people may simply not understand
what you want to say.
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For example, if you pronouncesleeplike this, and not like that, or if
you pronounceghost like this instead of this, native speakers will
have serious problems understanding you! In our opinion, you
should know how to say English sounds like the ee in sleep or the o
in ghost, before you even learn words like sleep and ghost.
Here is another anecdote about this. After coming back from a
vacation in the USA, a friend of Tom's said:
"Whenever I spoke to a person in America, they kept asking me
"What? What?". I would repeat my sentence again and again.
Finally they would say "Ah-ha!" and then say my sentence, using
exactly my words! It was very humiliating. I knew my words and
grammar were good, but nobody would understand me, just
because of my pronunciation. I am very motivated to learn English
now."
Can you communicate in English?
Almost all English learners say "I don't need to study pronunciation.
I just want to communicate in English." Many of them think that
they can communicate in English because they can communicate
with their teacher and other students.
Do not make this mistake! You have to remember that:
http://www.antimoon.com/words/pronounce-v.htmhttp://play%28%27sleep-bad%27%29/http://play%28%27sleep%27%29/http://www.antimoon.com/words/pronounce-v.htmhttp://play%28%27ghost-bad%27%29/http://play%28%27ghost%27%29/http://www.antimoon.com/words/native_speaker-n.htmhttp://www.antimoon.com/words/vacation-n.htmhttp://www.antimoon.com/words/pronunciation-n.htmhttp://www.antimoon.com/words/motivated-adj.htmhttp://www.antimoon.com/words/pronunciation-n.htmhttp://www.antimoon.com/words/pronounce-v.htmhttp://play%28%27sleep-bad%27%29/http://play%28%27sleep%27%29/http://www.antimoon.com/words/pronounce-v.htmhttp://play%28%27ghost-bad%27%29/http://play%28%27ghost%27%29/http://www.antimoon.com/words/native_speaker-n.htmhttp://www.antimoon.com/words/vacation-n.htmhttp://www.antimoon.com/words/pronunciation-n.htmhttp://www.antimoon.com/words/motivated-adj.htmhttp://www.antimoon.com/words/pronunciation-n.htm -
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Your teacher has been listening to bad English for years. He
or she can understand it much more easily than the average
person.
Other students are usually from the same country as you.
Therefore, they speak English like you and they make the
same mistakes. So it is easy for them to understand you.
The only true test is: Go to America or Britain and try to talk to
"normal people" a clerk at a supermarket, a bus driver, etc. If
they can understand you, then you can say that you can
communicate in English.
Unfortunately, many learners ignore pronunciation. They can
communicate in class, so they think that they are good enough.
After a few years they go to England or the USA and... nobody
understands what they are saying. Remember Tom's friend who
went on vacation to America and couldn't communicate? He was the
best student in his English class.
Michal wrote a short story about people living on two islands whereEnglish is spoken. The story is for those who say: "I don't need to
learn pronunciation because I only want to communicate."
http://www.antimoon.com/words/pronunciation-n.htmhttp://www.antimoon.com/words/vacation-n.htmhttp://www.antimoon.com/how/pronwhystory.htmhttp://www.antimoon.com/words/pronunciation-n.htmhttp://www.antimoon.com/words/vacation-n.htmhttp://www.antimoon.com/how/pronwhystory.htm -
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Communication is not enough
If you can communicate in English with people from other countries,
congratulations! It's a big achievement. But it may not be enough.
If you are at Level 2 of pronunciation skill, your English is
understandable, but you have a strong foreign accent which is
unpleasant for other people.
We have already said that your pronunciation is important because
it makes your first impression. This is certainly true nobody will
say that you speak good English if you have a strong foreign accent.
But there is more. If you have a pleasant accent, people will simply
enjoy talking to you. They will want to spend time with you. On the
other hand, if your accent is bad, people may be even avoiding you
(consciously or unconsciously).
The good news is that you can work on your pronunciation until you
speak "understandable and pleasant English" (we simply call it good
pronunciation). For example, you can learn the sounds of English,
listen to recordings, watch English-language television, etc. But first
you have to realize there is a problem! Most English learners don't.
Michal wrote a short story to help learners understand this problem.
We have received reader comments on this article. Subjects: My
motivation for learning pronunciation. Pronunciation is like singing.
The pronunciation of learners who live in an English-speaking
country.
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ABSTRACTBeing able to speak English includes a number of skills,
involving vocabulary, grammar,pragmatics, and so on. It
can be argued that by far, the most important of these
skills is pronunciation. Despite having a good grasp of
vocabulary and the grammatical rules of the English
language, speakers would be unintelligible if they had
poor pronunciation. Though pronunciation is an aspect of
language that is difficult to acquire, the reality is that in
many English language classrooms, teaching
pronunciation is granted the least attention. When
teachers defend the poor pronunciation skills of their
students, their arguments could either be described as a
cop-out with respect to their inability to teach their
students proper pronunciation or they could be regarded
as taking a stand against linguistic imperialism. This paper
begins by discussing these views and will then outline the
current status of pronunciation teaching from the
viewpoint of several experienced English language
teachers. Some information regarding the nature of
second language pronunciation and the needs of the
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teacher for teaching pronunciation, with particular focus
on material selection and teaching methodology will be
provided. Finally, this paper makes a number of
recommendations as to how the teaching of pronunciation
can be made more effective in the classroom.
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SURVEY:
KOREANSome Korean academics believe that the reason why some Koreans
cannot pronounce English is because of physical differences. Those
who have a short frenulum (a strap of tissue linking the tongue to
the floor of the mouth) can face problems pronouncing some
characters due to a disturbance in lateral movements of the
tongue, said Bae Jung-ho, an oral surgeon at Seouls Yonsei
Severance Hospital.
Such drastic measures are often taken in an ever increasing level
of competitiveness in the Korean society, where the need for
speaking English is higher than ever.
The operations are mostly performed on young children and cost
about 150,000 won. But do they really help? The answer is that
there is no decisive evidence, as many months of speech therapy is
need after the operation, and the level of success largely depends
on the childs mind & the ability to acquire new language.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frenulum_linguaehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frenulum_linguae -
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INDIAN
Harsh KadepurkarSpoken EnglishSubmitted on 11 September, 2008 - 16:58Hello
I am Harsh Kadepurkar from India, the first guest teacher on this
website.
I do not propose to offer any advice on improving pronunciation.
However, I would like to share my experience. I have realised that
pronunciation is not a problem of Indian students alone. It's a
universal problem of all the second language learners. Yes, we need
to overcome it. One of the ways is to first clearly understand and to
list down the differences between the two languages, the learner's
language and the target language and focus on those aspects.
Luckily a lot of work has been done in this area and is available
either in the form of books or dissertations in university
libraries. Unfortunately most of these dissertations are gathering
dust, at least in most libraries in India. Next thing would be to give
them as much of listening experience as possible, using authentic
sources. I mean the BBC or any such source.Thirdly, try to change
your approach. Your learners are not wrong in their pronunciations,
they are just different. There's nothing wrong in being different. Tell
your learners that if they want to communicate with their own
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/users/harsh-kadepurkarhttp://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/forum-topic/spoken-english-some-problems-encountered#comment-1059http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/users/harsh-kadepurkarhttp://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/users/harsh-kadepurkarhttp://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/forum-topic/spoken-english-some-problems-encountered#comment-1059 -
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people their variety of English is just fine. But if they want to
communicate at the international level, they will have to minimise
the differences. We are not native speakers of English and we can
never be. At the most we can go as close as possible. Tell them that
even in the UK there are four major varieties of English: Irish,
Scottish, Wales and British. And within them there are a large
number of sub varieties.
I said I won't give any advice. And I did just that. Sorry about it.
But can't help it. Have been a teacher for a long, long time!
CHINESE
To get Chinese pronunciation really authentic it's not that easy, but
just remember, if you really want your pronunciation to be perfect,
then it's a combination of careful study of the pronunciation guides
(I think the ones here on Chinese pod are really good) and careful
listening.
If you really listen and repeat and compare your pronunciation with
the native speakers, then you'll know what you're doing wrong and
the pronunciation guides give you the tools to fix it quickly.
I'll give you an example from my own experience, the three sounds,
"ji, qi, xi" I always had trouble with. From the beginning I knew
there was something wrong with them but didn't have any idea how
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to fix it. Most pronunciation guides (as well as my private tutor)
only concentrated on the sounds, "Zhi, Chi, Shi and Ri", since if we
pronounce our "Ji, Qi & Xi" with an American accent, then no
misunderstanding will arise, and besides I was always told my
pronunciation was really good and that I had a special gift for
pronunciation. Not just by my teacher but by all the Chinese People
I came accross with...so you'll see sometimes scrutiny and fair,
constructive criticism can help you immeasurable more than imply
compliments!
I would listen to native Chinese speakers and the speakers on my
Pimsleur CD's, and would hear things like, "" (zai yi qi) and
when I would make the "Qi" sound, it just never quite sounded
right.
I'd say some of the most basic words, like " and "" (xie xie
and xiao jie) and absolutely cringe at the sound of my own voice
because I KNEW EMPHATICALLY there was something I was doing
wrong...but I couldn't figure it out! Even my $50 dollar an hour
private tutor said there was nothing wrong with the way my "Ji, Qi,
Xi" sounded! But that's only because when I would say the sounds
all alone I couldn't really clearly hear what I was doing wrong.
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When you say the words in a sentence, then you can plainly hear
the American accent come across. But I'll get into that more in a
minute.
Then just about a year ago I went on John Pasden's (Chinesepod's
John Pasden) website sinosplice.com and discovered his
pronunciation guide for correcting the common mispronunciation of
"Ji, Qi and Xi" and I knew I'd found the answer I was looking for!
Keep in mind this is after FOUR YEARS of study of this
language...and I STILL couldn't get a handle on what I was doing
wrong by listening alone!
As it turns out, these sounds are completely foreign to English
speakers but they are much harder to correct than the with the 2
dots (umlaut) because you can't SEE what you need to do to
pronounce it correctly! As in the case of the with the Umlaut, you
can see the lips rounded in a tight hole and the dimples forming in
the cheek so saying words like and (L Cha and Sheng
Le) are pretty easy to figure out because it's VISUAL, but with the
"Ji, Qi, Xi" it's INTERNAL! It's a sound produced from completely
inside the mouth.
The "Ji, Qi and Xi" sounds are actually made by pressing the tip of
your tongue on the bottom of your lower teeth, with the center of
the tongue touching the Alveolar Ridge. The way we make the
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sounds in English is with the tip of the tongue turned up, touching
the Alveolar Ridge, thus giving the American sound to it.
That's why the Chinese describe it as being a "flat tongue" sound,
and that's why you hear a sort of soft hissing sound with this group
of sounds, as the air travels downward on a slope across the
surface of your tongue and out of your mouth.
So to really hear the difference between the sounds, reverse
everything. Replace your English "she" with the properly
pronounced Chinese sound "Xi", say, "Xi said xi wants to take a
xiao-er (shower) in a xi-ny (shiny) new xiao-er (shower)" and the
difference between the individual sounds really comes across! I
thin much more so than when pronouncing our butchered "Gee,
Chee, She" sounds in Chinese, and I feel this can help really help
bring it all together! It helps you to realize how important these
little details of pronunciation are.
But I digress, anyway needless to say I was ELATED! I finally had
the answer to the question that had been plaguing me for all those
years!
Correcting these sounds didn't happen overnight, I had to
constantly concentrate on proper tongue placement, as well as
having to learn how to move the tongue smoothly through quick
combinations between, the flat tongue and rolled tongue sounds,
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words like (xi shou jian...bathroom) were especially difficult
because it's a quick transition between Flat Tongue, (to) Rolled
Tongue, (and back to) Flat Tongue...but after a months of constant
work I finally got it.
So...that being said my Chinese speaking abilities gained newfound
confidence! I know it sounds corny but it's true, and actually,
finally getting that group of sounds correct led me to totally re-
examine my pronunciation and by being honest with myself I found
there were plently of other sounds I wasn't pronouncing correctly
either! Since then I've gone on to fix pretty much all the
pronunciation problems and I honestly feel my pronunciation is
really really close to sounding totally Chinese!
To tell you the truth, when you want to blend in perfectly with a
society, the more like them you SOUND...the more like them you
LOOK!
One time I was out with a group of my Chinese friends and we went
to a place where it was necessary for me to speak English, so I was
busy conversing with the Clerk in English and when I came back to
my group they said that, when watching me speak English one of
them remarked, "" (Wow, Xiao Hu's English is
really great!), the others started busting up and said,
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" " (Xiao Hu is
American, not Chinese...of course his English is great!)
The other told me, "
" (Apparently I'm so used to speaking Chinese with you that I
totally forgot you are American!) It sounds kind of dorky to say I
owe so much improvement to John Pasden, but I do! So, the point
of my long winded story is just that if you want to correct your
pronunciation, first consult the written guides to give you the clues
on how you are supposed to place your tongue, lips, etc., and what
you are supposed to do with the passage of air out of your mouth,
once armed with that knowledge, then go back to the Pinyin sound
chart and listen to each sound individually. Having previously
studied the pronunciation guide you will know basically what to do
to replicate those sounds, after which you, MIMIC, MIMIC, MIMIC!
Mimic the sounds individually at first, then start combining them
into words, and finally sentences, and before you know it, you
yourself will actually become widely regarded by the Chinese People
as a true
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JAPANESE
/l/ and /r/
This is probably the most common problem for Japanese learners of
English. The Japanese language does not have a different sound for
/l/ and /r/ and instead has a sound in between these two. This a
problem because it can change the entire meaning of the
information. For example, native speakers of English might hear
'light' instead of 'right' and 'arrive' instead of 'alive' or the opposite.
This problem has lead to Japanese spoken English commonly being
referred to as "Engrish".
/b/ and /v/
Japanese does not have a /v/ sound. Because of this, Japanese
speakers often substitute /b/ for /v/ in English pronunciation. This
is a problem because it can change the entire meaning of the
information. For example, native speakers of English may hear
'berry' instead of 'very' or the opposite.
/s/ and // and /t/ vs. /t/
When /s/ and /t/ are followed directly by the vowel sounds /i/ and
/iy/, as in 'sip' and 'sea' or 'tip' and 'tease', Japanese speakers often
confuse them with the sounds // and /t/ of pronouncing the
words that sound like 'ship' and 'she' or 'chip' and 'cheese'.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engrishhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engrish -
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BRAZILIAN
Pronunciation Problems for Brazilian Portuguese
Speakers
bysusan.
I know that many readers of my blog are Brazilians who want to
improve their American English pronunciation. I am pleased that so
many of you visit here!
Here are two common problems encountered by Brazilian
Portuguese speakers who are trying to improve their pronunciation
of American English.
1. The schwa sound / /
Brazilian Portuguese does not have a reduced vowel sound such as
the schwa that is so prevalent in spoken English. That means that
Brazilian Portuguese speakers often pronounce the vowels in
reduced syllables fully when these vowels should have a schwa
vowel sound.
2. Consonant clusters that begin with S
In Portuguese there is usually a vowel in front of an /s/ sound or s
consonant cluster. Because of that Brazilian Portuguese speakers
tend to insert a vowel sound before s clusters when they speak
English. That means that they pronounce the word school like
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eschool, the word study like estudy and the word special like
especial.
While American English speakers may still understand you if you
make these mistakes, these types of errors will contribute to your
accent.
ItalianSee also: Italian phonology
A study on Italian children's pronunciation of English revealed the
following characteristics:
Tendency to replace the English high lax vowels / / / / with
[i] [u] (ex: "fill" and "feel", "put" "poot" are homophones),
since Italian doesn't have these vowels.
Tendency to replace // with [] ("singer" rhymes with
"finger") or as [n] (combined with the above tendency makes
the words "king" and "keen" homophones) because Italian []
is an allophone of /n/ before velar stops.
Tendency to replace word-initial /sm/ with [zm], e.g. small
[zm l] .
Tendency to replace / / with [a] so that motheris pronounced
[ mad r] or [ ma r] .
Italian does not have dental fricatives:
o Voiceless // may be replaced with a dental [t] or with
[f].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_phonologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_phonologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_language -
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o Voiced // may become a dental [d] .
Since /t/ and /d/ are typically pronounced as dental stops
anyway, words like there and dare can become homophones.
// is replaced with [ ] , so that bag sounds like beg [b ] .
Tendency to pronounce /p t k/ as unaspirated stops.
Schwa [ ] does not exist in Italian; speakers tend to give the
written vowel its full pronunciation, e.g. lemon [ l m n] ,
television [t le vi n] , parrot [ prot] , intelligent [in
t lid nt] , water[ w t r] , sugar[ u ar].
Italian speakers may pronounce consonant-final English words
with a strong vocalic offset, especially in isolated words, e.g.
dog [d]. This has led to the stereotype of Italians adding
[ ] to the ends of English words.
Tendency to pronounce /r/ as a trill [r] rather than the English
approximant / / , e.g.parrot[ prot] .
In addition, Italians learning English have a tendency to pronounce
words as they are spelled, so that walk is [w lk] , guide is [wid],
and boiledis [ b l d] . This is also true for loanwords borrowed from
English as water, which is pronounced [vat r] instead of [ w t ] .
Related to this is the fact that many Italians produce /r/ wherever it
is spelled (e.g. star[star]), resulting in a rhotic accent, even when
the dialect of English they are learning is nonrhotic. Consonants
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trill_consonanthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approximant_consonanthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_accenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trill_consonanthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approximant_consonanthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_accent -
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written double may be pronounced as geminates, e.g. Italians
pronounce apple with a longer [p] sound than English speakers do.
VIETNAMESENote: There are two main dialects in Vietnamese, a northern one
centered around Hanoi and a southern one centered around Ho Chi
Minh City.
Speakers may not produce final consonants since there are
fewer final consonants in Vietnamese and those that do exist
differ in their phonetic quality:
o Final /b/ is likely to be confused with /p/
o Final /d/ is likely to be confused with /t/
o Final /f/ is likely to be confused with /p/
o Final /v/ is likely to be confused with /b/ or /p/
o Final /s/ is likely to be confused with / / or simply
omitted
o Final / / is likely to be omitted
o Final /z/ is likely to be confused with / / or /s/
o Final /t / is likely to be confused with / /
o Final /l/ is likely to be confused with /n/
Speakers also have difficulty with English consonant clusters,
with segments being omitted or epinthetic vowels being
inserted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geminationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanoihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh_Cityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh_Cityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epenthesishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geminationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanoihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh_Cityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh_Cityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epenthesis -
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Speakers may not aspirate initial /t/ and /k/, making
(American) listeners perceive them as /d/ and //
respectively.
Speakers often have difficulty with the following phonemes:
o //, which is confused with /t/ or /s/
o //, which is confused with /d/ or /z/
o /p/, which is confused with /b/
o //, which is confused with /k/
o /d / , which is confused with /z/
o / / , which is confused with /z/ or /d /
o /s/, which is confused with / /
o /t / , which is confused with /d / , /t / or /t/
o /v/, which is confused with /j/
o / / , which is confused with /i/
o / / , which is confused with /u/ or / /
o / / , which is confused with //
o //, which is confused with / / or //
Vietnamese is a tonal language and speakers may try to usethe Vietnamese tonal system or use a monotone with English
words. They may also associate tones onto the intonational
pattern of a sentence and becoming confused with such
inflectional changes.
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Hebrew
The lack of discrimination in Hebrew between short and long
vowels makes correctly pronouncing English words such as
hit/heat and tap/top difficult. Dental fricatives// (as in
"the") and [] (as in "think") are often mispronounced.
Hebrew speakers may confuse /w/ and /v/.
In Hebrew, word stress is usually on the last (ultimate) or
penultimate syllable of a word; speakers may carry their
stress system into English, which has a much more varied
stress system. Hebrew speakers may also use Hebrew
intonation patterns which mark them as foreign speakers of
English.
FRENCH
GENERAL: The main problem with acquiring a native accent
lies in speaking like a book and ignoring the assimilations not
mentioned in most books that native-speakers make
naturally. For example, we change "v" to [b] before "m" in
conversational tempos in haven't, gov'ment(in the sense of
the entity one pays taxes to), etc.; and we assimilate "d" to
certain following consonants (see the book by Bailey &
Maroldt mentioned in the note below), as in goob boy, goog
girl, I'b better, if they'b been, etc. The double consonants
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simplify to one in conversational tempos, so good in the
previous examples becomes goo', I'dbecomes I, and they'd
becomes they--with 'd effectively lost. And [v] gets lost in
unstressed of and 've, especially before consonants; cf. the
normal usage oflotsa for lots ofand ofshoulda and musta for
should've and must've, respectively. When this coincides with
vowelless 've, the word gets entirely lost, as in I' gotta.
--omitting the [w] in situ[w]ation, genu[w]ine, etc. This is a
real litmus test of quasi-native English. One often hears
sitchee[/]ation. You should say "sitcha" and immediately add
"waishun." (In Scotland, the "w" is omitted for historical
reasons: "w" became "v," as in Cockney English; siteevation
then sounded too deviant and eventually fell into desuetude.)
--pronouncing [t] between most consonants (as in mustn't
and mostly), as well as [d] between [n] or [l] and most
consonants (as in windmill and goldmine; Germans use a
Knacklaut for both [t] and [d] here). Unstressed and,
England, Scotland, Ireland, island, husband, almond, and
older ribbandfor ribbon lack final [d]--even before a vowel, as
in "Englan' an' Scotlan' an' Irelan'." In many environments,
andis simply syllabic 'n.
--It is pitiful to hear learners of English trying to pronounce
"th" in faiths, tenths, sixths, and fifth century. Aside from the
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fact that we omit the second "f" in fifth and the only "f" in
twelfth, "ths" becomes a fronted "s" (or, in bathes, a fronted
"z"), which is long in slower tempos. Thus, faiths differs from
face only in theplace of the tongue tip when articulating "s"--
and, in slower tempos, in that the sound in question is longer
in faiths. In normal tempos, tenths and tense are parallel, as
are sixths and six. And please, just double the fronted "s" in
place of "th" in twentieth century! For how pitiful "th" sounds
in synthetic and (esp. among English literature specialists)
esthetic, consider that pronouncing gift as gifth, while
etymologically in order, would in fact be absurd. (CLICK
HERE FOR FURTHER ON THIS.) Just as we occlude "f" in
sphere (different from spear only in where the lower lip is
placed), so we occlude "th" to "t" in estheticand syntheticand
in other comparable environments. (See the author's English
phonetic transcription; those who read German can also
consult Bailey and Maroldt, Grundzge der englischen
Phonetologie.) Some speakers even retain "f" and change "th"
to "t" (as did speakers of Anglo-Saxon) in fifth and twelfth;
fiftand twelftare heard. Because "f" is omitted in fifth, fifths
differs from fists (which ends in [s:], with no [t] heard) only
in that the sibilant is more fronted (the tongue tip is against
the edges of the upper row of teeth) in fifths. Foreigners
often fail to realize that the pronunciation of "th" as [T] or [D]
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